


in these prying times

by jellyryans (ryankellycc)



Category: Haikyuu!!, きのう何食べた? | Kinou Nani Tabeta? | What Did You Eat Yesterday?
Genre: Dialogue Heavy, F/F, Fluff, Gen, Haikyuu!! Manga Spoilers, Interns & Internships, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, POV Original Character, Post-Time Skip, Social Media, and a Proud Mom, cute girls are cute, gossiping and innocent internet snooping, haikyuu!! canon-compliant, perhaps some gay panic?, the slightest hint of internalized homophobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-18
Updated: 2020-04-18
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:34:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23720908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ryankellycc/pseuds/jellyryans
Summary: Itou Kazumi's internship reveals more than just the inner workings of a museum.Written forMashaas part of a lovely little quarexchange!
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Tsukishima Kei
Comments: 10
Kudos: 118
Collections: HQ!! Writers Fic Exchange





	in these prying times

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mozaikmage](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mozaikmage/gifts).



> Masha, I took a bunch of liberties and tried something new (and very fun if also personally terrifying) but I hope you enjoy anyway!!

“I don’t see it.”

“More for me then!“

Yoshino punctuated her exclamation with a happy shrug which sent a shudder down Kazumi’s spine. “Isn’t he way older?” She asked.

Yoshino looked up from her phone. “Yabuki-san told us he was hired right out of university, and during introductions last week he said he’d been working here a couple years. Therefore,” she concluded, “Not that much older than us.”

“Maybe it’s just because he looks so serious all the time,” Kazumi said. “Have you ever seen him smile?”

“Nope.”

“And that doesn’t creep you out?”

“He’s just the brooding type,” Yoshino said. She leaned into Kazumi’s space to whisper. “Maybe he’s got some crazy secret, like he’s the son of some billionaire and his parents shunned him for refusing his rightful place as their corporate drone, or he can see dead people and he uses his knowledge of Date family artifacts to solve ancient mysteries!”

She had started giggling halfway through. Kazumi bit back her own smile. “You we’re interns and not shoujo protagonists, right?”

Yoshino threw her arms around Kazumi’s shoulders and wailed. “Zumi-chan’s such a buzzkill!”

Kazumi started at the touch. Yoshino’s hands were always cold, but her body was warm. “Only you can be so energetic at eight in the morning,” she sputtered.

“It’s not eight~” Yoshino sang.

“Oh my god.” Kazumi checked her phone. It was ten minutes to the hour.

The other interns trickled into the office and took their seats around the table.

“Itou-san! Sasaki-san! What a surprise!”

“We’re here for the same meeting every freaking day.” 

“Yeah dude, literally zero surprises.”

Kazumi barely heard them over the tinkling of Yoshino’s laughter, which stopped abruptly when the door opened again.

“Ah, Tsukishima-san! Good morning!” 

The recipient of her enthusiastic greeting spared a brief look with the group when he passed their gathering spot, but was otherwise unmoved. Yoshino dropped back into her seat with a happy sigh. Before she could ask if Tsukishima had looked her way, their manager swept into the office with a level of cheer that put Yoshino to shame.

“Good morning, my dear interns!”

They had only met a handful of times since their internship began with the new year, but it only took a couple morning meetings to figure out exactly what they had to do to recommend themselves. “Good morning, Kenji-san,” they all sang in unison.

Kenji’s joy was visceral. He wiggled with excitment as he directed his voice behind him, in the direction of the desk furthest from the meeting area. “And Kei-kun?”

“Good morning, Yabuki-san,” Tsukishima said in his usual monotone, without looking up from his desk.

“Not such a good morning for those dastardly birds down in Osaka, though, hm?”

Tsukishima pursed his lips. “Seeing as I’m sitting at my desk in Sendai, I wouldn’t know.”

“Mhm,” Kenji hummed knowingly, not put off in the slightest by Tsukishima’s snark.

“Yabuki-san, your meeting.”

Kenji’s face brightened with the reminder, and Kazumi got a sharp elbow to the ribcage. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep herself from calling out. “What?”

“Did you see that? Tsukishima-kun had a _reaction_!”

“If that was a reaction, then I’m the rightful heir to a throne somewhere in Europe,” Kazumi muttered under her breath.

━━»•» «•«━━

“I finally figured out what Kenji-san was talking about the other day!”

“Huh?”

“What do you mean, _huh_?!” Yoshino said, imitating Kazumi’s gutteral response. “The birds Kenji-san mentioned a couple weeks ago!”

A couple weeks ago, Kazumi was buried under a mountain of notes and study guides. “Birds?”

Yoshino gasped. “You, dearest Zumi-chan, need to get your head out of your books once in a while.”

“Not all of us have your insane photographic memory. Some of us have to actually study.”

“Exams were last week though! Time to move on!” She in the chair next to Kazumi and pulled it close enough that they could both look at her phone. “Look,” she said, dragging her finger through a Twitter feed, “Before cramming and finals and all of that, Kenji-san mentioned something about birds in Osaka, remember?”

Kazumi had enough trouble wading through her memories of the last 48 hours, let alone weeks ago. “Not really.”

“The Suntory Sunbirds are a men’s volleyball team from Osaka!” Yoshino said, ignoring her completely.

Kazumi craned her neck to look at the screen. “Okay?”

“And this the Black Jackals Twitter account. Apparently, they played them that day.”

**MSBY BLACK JACKALS OFFICIAL** @v_jackals · Jan 15

Tomorrow we play @v_sunbirds !! In Osaka!!! The Jackals will fight with all we have!!!! Thank you for your enthusiasm!!!!!!

#msbyblackjackals #blackjackals #letsgojackals

Under the tweet, there was a video. The volume was off, and Kazumi sent a silent prayer to the heavens for that small mercy.

She watched as a group of guys, lined up side-to-side in matching black and white jerseys, bobbed like they were dancing. One of them, a short guy with red hair stood apart from the rest, stepping side to side with an awkward shimmy as, Kazumi guessed, he led the song. Suddenly, a big guy from the line-up with spiked white and black hair pushed him out of the way to finish the video with a big thumbs up and a victorious fist in the air.

“Why am I watching these — wait,“ Kazumi narrowed her eyes at the monochrome logo of the profile picture and pointed. “Tsukishima-san was wearing that on a shirt the other day.”

Yoshino hugged her with a squeal and squeezed tightly before pushing her arm’s length away to see her face. “Yes! Exactly! And the Black Jackals are local!”

Kazumi heard Yoshino’s words, but she was inexplicably distracted by the elegant and frigid fingers still gripping her arms.

“So,” Yoshino continued, filling in the gap with a smug grin. “Obviously, Tsukishima-san has a connection to this team, right? It might be that they’re local, but I feel like that’s too mundane for someone like Tsukishima-san, so I followed everyone on the team. For clues.”

“T-That’s so weird,” Kazumi finally stuttered.

Yoshino huffed, and her hands fell down Kazumi’s arms to squeeze her hands. “It’s not like I had to hack into some secret government server. Their accounts are public.”

“But now your feed is just going to be a million tweets from random guys.”

“I mean, they’re all really hot, so it doesn’t bother me,” Yoshino said with a wink.

Kazumi pulled her hands away, surprised by her own gesture. “You’re really shameless, you know?”

“Yup,” Yoshino said happily. “The redhead that was doing that little dance in the video is super hilarious. He tweets like a hundred times a day about everything, and it’s funny stuff, like this.”

**Hinata Shouyou** @hina_shoball · 1 day

HAHAHHHHAA BOKUTO-SAN!!!!!

#tiktok

Kazumi recognized the guy with the monochrome hair straddling a guy that she thought she’d seen in the video, one of his teammates with sandy hair and an undercut. Sandy undercut-guy held himself in a plank, facing the mat underneath them, while monochrome-guy, somehow, held on to his shoulders and lowered him closer and closer to the ground. Kazumi assumed they were doing an elaborate strength training exercise until something in the background distracted monochrome-guy and caused him to lose his balance, sending them both tumbling to the ground. She winced. Undercut-guy fell face-first into the mat with the entire bulk of monochrome guy on his back.

After the video played, Yoshino scrolled through the first replies.

**Miya A** @bestmiya · 1 day

Replying to @hinasho_ball

I had to sit in an ice bath for 30 mins and there’s a giant bruise on my back from @bokutosan4 ’s fat knee but sacrifices must be made I guess

**Bokuto Koutarou** @bokutosan4 · 1 day

Replying to @hinasho_ball

OMG SEND THAT TO TK N TELL ME IF HE LAUGHS

**Hinata Shouyou** @hina_shoball · 1 day

Replying to @bokutosan4

HES GOING TO LAUGH SO HARD IM TELLING HIM RN AHAHAHA

**Akaashi** @transcribedkanji · 1 day

Replying to @hinasho_ball

@bestmiya You certainly look like a willing participant.

**Bokuto Koutarou** @bokutosan4 · 1 day

Replying to @bestmiya

hey my knees arent fat

A small smile tugged at the corners of Kazumi’s mouth. “They do look like they’re having fun. ”

“Uh huh,” Yoshino said, still reading the string of replies. “By the way, I’m gonna confess to Tsukishima-san on Valentine’s.”

“Why?” Kazumi blurted. She barely stopped herself from smacking her hand over her mouth.

“Why not? He’s hot, he has a steady job, he’s mysterious. What’s not to like?”

Kazumi didn’t disagree, but she didn’t like it either. “But Valentine’s is in, like, two days!”

Yoshino held her chin high and dangled her phone in the air. “Yup,” she said confidently. “I’ve got an in, so I’m not worried.”

“Is stalking some random redhead on a sports team he might follow really an in?“

“It’s enough to get a conversation started!”

It pained Kazumi to admit she had a point, so she kept her mouth shut. 

━━»•» «•«━━

Valentine’s Day had the decency to fall on a Friday, so Kazumi waited for Yoshino to walk back to campus. They hadn’t agreed upon meeting, and Kazumi couldn’t articulate exactly why it was so important that she knew as soon as humanly possible how Yoshino’s confession went. She decided to blame Yoshino’s love of drama for rubbing off on her.

“He didn’t accept,” Yoshino said, appearing at her side.

It had only been ten minutes since she had skipped off to find the object of her affection. Kazumi’s eyes softened in sympathy, but she was glad her thoughts were private. “I’m so sorry, Yoshino-chan.”

“He just said no.”

“Oh. That’s it?”

“I mean, no,” Yoshino said dully. “Or, yes! I asked him out and all he said was ‘No.’ Then, I asked him if he wanted to think about it until White Day, and he just said ‘No.’ _Again_. Finally, I asked why not, and he said he was seeing someone.”

Kazumi thought back on their acquaintance with Tsukishima-san. No one had ever made him lunch, or sent him notes, or came to meet him after work. They had gotten a glimpse of his lock screen but, instead of a picture of a special person, it was part of a dinosaur skeleton that Yoshino would later (mysteriously _and_ expertly) identify as a brachiosaurus from the Dinosaur Museum in Fukui.

“I’d think he was lying if he weren’t the tell-it-like-it-is kinda guy,” Yoshino said thoughtfully. “Remember in the beginning when he told me my tours didn’t hold up the,” she air-quoted with her voice three octaves deeper, “’Sendai City Museum standard’ because I was ‘more focused’ on entertaining than infodumping?”

Kazumi did remember. She’d been there with Tsukishima, too. “One time I put an extra space in the formatted text of one of the placards because I thought it looked better and he made me re-do it,” she said.

“It was good advice though,” Yoshino murmured, like she was thinking out loud instead of playing an active role in their conversation. “Now I have teachers requesting me for their class tours because other teachers recommended me.”

“He actually came to me the week after,” Kazumi added reluctantly. “to ask me for my input on the design for the summer exhibit templates.”

“You never told me that.”

Kazumi swallowed the lump in her throat. “I guess I was busy with finals and it didn’t seem important at the time.”

“He really cares about this dusty old place, huh?” Yoshino said softly. “Even if he prefers to act like an asshole.”

They walked toward campus in comfortable silence until they reached the sign informing them that they were traversing the outer fortress to Sendai Castle. Kazumi had never admitted it to anyone, but she had chosen Kawauchi campus because simply walking around made her feel like a real part of her Prefecture’s history. She had never considered that Tsukishima-san might’ve done the same.

“You know, Tsukishima-san’s phone vibrates all the time,” Yoshino said. “I just remembered noticing because Satou-kun was rambling about how he couldn’t think with the buzzing, and we all had to get out our phones to prove it wasn’t us. Tsukishima-san was the only other person in the office and he just raised his eyebrows and stared at him until he stopped whining. It was _amazing_.”

Kazumi cursed herself for not remembering Satou-kun being put in his place, and then doubly cursed Yoshino for her excellent memory — It was only February and she’d already spent too many sleepless nights wondering what embarrassing things Yoshino would remember about her when their internship was over.

“Maybe that’s his girlfriend,” Yoshino said thoughtfully. “He does have that stupid sandal on his museum keys…”

Kazumi could picture the keychain as clearly as the number plate on the outside of her dorm room. Hot pink contrasted dramatically with Tsukishima’s drab aesthetic. “It doesn’t really seem like him,” she agreed.

“Oh, it _definitely_ doesn’t. He wouldn’t buy something like that for himself.” Yoshino gasped with her next thought. “Maybe he met a girl on a beach trip and they had a whirlwind romance, the kind where they promise to meet each other at a train station somewhere a year later, but she doesn’t show and he carries that hideous keychain around in case someday, somewhere, she sees it and they find each other again! ”

Like the flip of a switch, Yoshino was back to bouncing on her heels.

“Did you just put Tsukishima-san in a movie?” Kazumi asked with a teasing grin.

Yoshino laughed. “Just give me this one, Zumi-chan. I think I deserve a little something after being rejected. As a treat.”

They giggled together, the condensation of their breaths mingling against the February chill.

━━»•» «•«━━

Satou had her cornered.

Moments earlier, Kazumi had accidentally juxtaposed the numbers in the time period of one of the museum storage listings, and the universe had deemed it necessary for Satou to walk by her temporary desk at the exact moment she had clicked out of the cell.

He leaned over her to point at her monitor, so Kazumi couldn’t escape physically.She was forced to settle for a mental place place far, far away from Satou’s lunch breath-laced condescension.

“I don’t mind going over your work, I’m really good at — OOF!”

Yoshino burst into the office and made a beeline for Kazumi. She hipchecked Satou, sending him flying with a surprising amount of strength, and thrust her phone in Kazumi’s face with a dramatic shriek. “Look at what Hinata-kun just posted!”

“Hinata?”

“He’s the redhead from the Black Jackals!”

“That again,” Kazumi muttered.

Yoshino jerked her head back in surprise. “What?”

“Tsukishima-san rejected you a few weeks ago and you’re still following these guys to drool over them?”

“I’m not _drooling_ , Zumi-chan, and I’m following them because they’re funny. Plus, it’s totally different. Like, this guy, Hinata-san, is Tsukishima-san’s exact opposite. He’s always smiling and laughing and using exclamation points. But that’s not the point! Please just look at the tweet!”

Yoshino’s playful pout galvanized the emergence of a clutch of butterflies in Kazumi’s gut. She looked at the tweet, if only because it might distract her from the wrath of their delicate and erratic fluttering.

**Hinata Shouyou** @hina_shoball · 23 mins

@mrtanakakiyoko Happy bday Tanaka-senpai!!!!! #5 forever!!!

#karasunoFLY #karasunovolleyballclub #bestsenpai #wingspikers

Twitter cut off half the photo attached to the tweet, but she could still see a muscular arm wrapped around Hinata’s neck and the corner of a large, toothy smile set against tan skin.

“Karasuno,” Kazumi said. “That’s…”

“Close! -Ish!” Yoshino supplied. “I know! It definitely explains all of Hinata-kun’s shout-outs. Just the other week he tweeted about missing the scones at the café right across from Centennial.”

“He must be from around here.”

“If he went to Karasuno High School, then yeah.”

“Ah! Someone mentioned Karasuno!”

They jumped with the musicality of their boss’s voice, but they weren’t struck with the full force of his surprise appearance until they turned around.

Kenji, with an ominous twinkle in his eye, linked arms with Tsukishima, who stood next to him. Tsukishima let his arm hang loose instead of bending it at the elbow to welcome the intrusion of his personal space, but he endured the physical contact with a level of bored patience that made Kazumi’s head spin.

“Did you know our beloved Kei-kun went to Karasuno?” Kenji asked.

Yoshino and Kazumi shook their heads in stunned silence.

“And, not only did he graduate at the top of his class, he helped their volleyball team to their first big game in _years_ when he was just a,” Kenji craned his neck all the way up to Tsukishima’s blonde curls, “a very tall young sprite!”

Tsukishima closed his eyes and inhaled slowly, like he needed the air as a weapon in the fight against whatever raged inside his skull. “They’re called tournaments, Yabuki-san.”

“Tournaments, yes, those,” Kenji corrected. He glanced up at Tsukishima with a conspiratorial wink.

“As much as I’m enjoying whatever’s happening here, may I get back to work?”

“So diligent,” Kenji cooed. He patted Tsukishima on the chest fondly before releasing him. “I’m just so proud of you, Kei-kun,” he said, wiping a tear from his eye.

Tsukishima didn’t look back at them as he returned to the solitude of his corner desk, but they heard a distinct, “Thank you, Yabuki-san.”

━━»•» «•«━━

For the city of Sendai, the week of Vernal Equinox meant time off work, no university classes, extra time with family, plans for upcoming festivals, deep spring cleaning, food offerings, and quiet moments to honor their families. 

For the interns at Sendai City Museum, the week beforehand meant cutting out hundreds of construction paper decorations, wrangling child-safe craft supplies, building special exhibit additions, hanging giant canvas banners, using ream after ream of paper to print informational flyers, answering the same questions from the public until their throats went try, attempting to schedule (and cancel, and reschedule) conflicting schoolroom and family events, and drinking enough coffee to pad their preferred cafés’ budgets for the next six months. 

The only one who thrived under the landslide of responsibilities was Yoshino, who skipped into the office on morning with a smile that put the sun to shame. Kazumi peered at her from where she was slumped over on the table, next to another intern that had started snoring as soon as his head hit the surface. 

“So, remember when we found out that Hinata-san and Tsukishima-san went to the same high school?”

“Good morning to you, too,” Kazumi muttered.

“Wake up, Zumi-chan! I’ve got news about our favorite frowning senpai!”

Kazumi didn’t fight her assumption of favoritism, and she definitely didn’t think about the way she’d gotten so used to Yoshino’s phone in her face that she knew exactly how far back to angle her head. Her eyes focused around the cracks on the screen. The backs of four guys in numbered black jerseys in what looked like a huge gymnasium stared back at her. She blinked. Numbers five and three looked awfully familiar, and the part of her brain that had been bombarded with Yoshino-chan’s rich and colorful commentary for the last few months whispered, _height difference!_

“I had to do some digging,” Yoshino said, “But it turns out that Tsukishima-san and Hinata-san _were_ on the same volleyball team at Karasuno and they even graduated the same year, which means Tsukishima-san knows a celebrity! Maybe that’s his big, broody secret!”

“Are volleyball players considered celebrities?” Kazumi asked. “Hinata-kun’s not even verified on Twitter.”

Yoshino beamed. “You’ve got an eye for detail, Zumi-chan. No wonder Tsukishima-san prefers you to help with his data entry!”

“N-no he doesn’t,” Kazumi sputtered. 

“He definitely does, and it’s because you’re good. Give yourself some credit.” Yoshino said with an air of finality. “Hinata-kun is definitely on some level of famousness, enough that I was able to find his personal Twitter from an international sports page.”

Kazumi tried searching for her own account from time to time, and nothing ever came up. She gave that one to Yoshino. 

“Since they know each other, I wonder if Hinata-san knows who Tsukishima-san is dating! Should I ask?”

“Yoshino-chan, no,” Kazumi-san hurried to say. 

Yoshino clapped her hands in delight. “Yoshino-chan, yes!”

It was hard for Kazumi to judge who was luckier that Kenji called Yoshino for a last-minute tour: that Hinata guy for not having to deal with very personal questions in a very public way or herself for getting the chance to watch Yoshino’s hands fly along with her voice as she reenacted historical dialogue in front of a group of children.

━━»•» «•«━━

The first cherry blossoms of April welcomed Tohoku’s students back to their studies.

Kazumi wouldn’t go so far as to say she missed spending her days dodging Satou’s unsolicited advice and cursing Excel’s burning desire to crash every two hours, but she didn’t begrudge her alarm for waking her up early on Saturday morning.

“Zumi-chan!” 

Yoshino followed her greeting with an energetic wave and pointed to the seat next to her. Kazumi dumped her bag at her feet and slid into the chair with her head tilted back, a maneuver she’d perfected over the course of the last three and a half months. 

When Yoshino’s screen punctured her personal bubble, she was ready. 

**Hinata Shouyou** @hina_shoball · 2 mins

cant wait to go home and see my bf!!!!!!!!!! for a whole week!!!!! 

#miyagipride #volleyislife #karasunofly #ldrsux 

The repeating frog, sparkling heart, and volleyball emojis weren’t enough to distract her from the text. “B-F?” She read aloud. “As in _boy_ friend?”

“Uh huh,” Yoshino said. “I took a screenshot right away because I couldn’t believe it and I’m super glad I did. It was taken down literally ten minutes later.”

“Hinata-san is gay?”

“Or bi,” Yoshino said, like it was nothing. “I’m sure the team manager or whatever made him delete it. Doesn’t that piss you off? Sure pisses _me_ off.”

“I-I…” Kazumi’s mind had screeched to a stop. “Yes?”

“Right?!” Yoshino huffed. “It’s just the who someone is, you know. God, what year is this?”

Kazumi swallowed the lump in her throat and wished she could do the same to the red flush burning the tips of her ears. Her thoughts scattered like marbles dashed to the floor. ”About that scroll that needs an updated plaque …”

“So serious,” Yoshino teased, though her expression was uncharacteristically serious. “I haven’t gotten to the best part yet.”

“Best part?” 

“One of the HR interns told me that, when he was filing, he noticed that Tsukishima-san requested time off in a couple weeks. A whole week exactly.”

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Kazumi said, wiping the sweat of her palms on the fabric of her skirt. She couldn’t relax her jaw, and her breath became labored. 

Yoshino’s eyes widened, then she brushed her hair behind her ear with a smile so soft Kazumi could almost feel it brush against her skin. “You were saying something about a scroll? So sorry for steamrolling you there, Zumi-chan. The plaques are really helpful when I forget something, so we’ve gotta make sure we do our best!”

There wasn’t anything interesting to say about the plaque, other than that it needed to be updated to reflect new information, but she smiled and leaned in with a level of earnestness that lifted the weight of their conversation from Kazumi’s shoulders and allowing her breathing to slow.

Since the beginning of their internship, Kazumi watched as people scooped up Yoshino’s giggling and gossip, threw it in a a fancy box, wrapped it up with a pretty ribbon, and called it a day. They constantly underestimated her. They were idiots. 

It might’ve been selfish, but, at least in their small corner of the world, Kazumi didn’t mind having Yoshino’s radiance to herself.

━━»•» «•«━━

The intricate puzzle of Tsukishima Kei’s personal life was solved with a single Twitter mention. 

Yoshino was panting when she found Kazumi, but she didn’t stop as she grabbed Kazumi’s hand and dragged her around a corner, out of view. She fumbled with her phone until she found the reason for her impromptu sprint across the museum. 

**Hinata Shouyou** @hina_shoball · 2 hrs

AHHHHHHHHH miyagi here i come!! gonna get to hug the best mom and sister everrrrrrrrrrr!! LOVE YOU @flowermom123 !!!!! 

#family #love #miyagipride

Without a word, she tapped the mention. 

**Proud Mom Hinata-san** @flowermom123 · 3 hrs

My son is coming home soon! Our family will be complete! I’m so lucky!! Inlove soproud myfamily love bestfamily gay

“Wow,” Kazumi said, knowing full well there was nothing she could say that would even remotely reach the depths of the feelings that churned beneath her skin. 

In the picture attached to the tweet, Tsukishima was crouched down in front of a little girl with wild red curls, in _their_ museum, pointing at Date Masamune’s suit of armor. His mouth was open, like he was speaking, the little girl looked up at the impressive artifact with her jaw slack and her eyes wide. 

What pierced Kazumi to her core, however, was the simple word, most likely meant to be a hashtag, combined with the gentle smile on Tsukishima’s face. 

A third person cleared their throat, and Yoshino’s phone clattered the ground. Someone squealed. Kazumi would swear until her dying breath it wasn’t her. 

“Ah, Tsukishima-san, you scared us!” Yoshino said. Her composure looked physically painful, but she maintained it with aplomb. “What are you doing here?”

“I happen to work here.”

Yoshino’s laughter was shrill. “So funny, Tsukishima-san!” 

“Itou,” he addressed Kazumi. “Would you mind sending me the most recent version of your handicrafts spreadsheet? I want to compare it to mine.”

There was a reason Kazumi preferred sitting behind a computer to giving public tours. She did not perform well under pressure. 

“You’re gay?!” 

“No.”

“But you — your boyfriend?”

Tsukishima’s eye twitched. 

Yoshino sucked in a breath. “Tsukishima-kun, are you dating a guy named Hinata Shouyou?”

“My _boyfriend_ is an idiot.”

Kazumi nodded, biting her lip to keep from telling him that he didn’t actually answer any of their questions.

“Kei-kun, please don’t scare my interns!” Kenji said, rounding the corner to join them. Yoshino relaxed into Kazumi’s side. Their boss’s arrival felt like a miracle for so many reasons. “Unless you’d like to do their work on top of yours?”

Tsukishima smiled. Somehow, it made him more intimidating.“No, Yabuki-san. I was just leaving.”

“Great! We’ll walk together. Now,” he said, leading them away, “Please tell me you’ll bring Shou-kun around this time? Shiro-san would love to cook for you two again! Such a cute double date!”

“He didn’t seem very pleased last time.”

“He was just upset that Shou-kun could eat so much! He doesn’t like when he doesn’t prepare enough food. Ah, I’m falling in love with him all over again! We’ll be prepared this time. I guess that’s a professional athlete for you, eating so much even though he’s so short!”

Tsukishima snorted. “I’ll tell him you said that.”

“Hush with that attitude, Kei-kun. Save it for your time off!”

Tsukishima and Kenji disappeared down the hall, but Kazumi only returned to awareness when Yoshino tugged on her sleeve. 

“Did you hear that?” she whispered. 

Her boss and her senior were talking about their boyfriends with smiles on their faces. Kazumi put her hand over her heart, to feel it beat.

“Yeah,” she said. “I did.”

**Author's Note:**

> Yabuki Kenji and his boyfriend, Shiro, are from the series "What did you eat yesterday," which is one of my faves. I moved them to Sendai and gave them new jobs for this fic. 
> 
> Itou Kazumi and Sasaki Yoshino (and the rest of interns) are OCs. 
> 
> Some of the tweets inspired by/based on [Twin City Volleyball](https://twitter.com/TwoCityTrails/status/1233383136387420160) and the [Panasonic Panthers account](https://twitter.com/v_panthers?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor) (the team that, according to the hq wiki, the black jackals are based on). 
> 
> Thanks for reading!!!!!! Masha, you are a valued, appreciated, and beloved person!!!!!! So glad I got to write something for you and hope that it gives you at least a teensy bit of the joy that you give all of us! <3


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